If you have DirectTV and want to $ave

Call and complain about your pay per view being disabled all day Sunday until 9PM and ask them what compensation they are going to provide. Get to the supervisor and you should be able to get a $10 reduction in your bill for the next 12 months as compensation. Story follows:

I just found out why I couldn't buy pay per view movies on Sundays on several occasions. I had thought it was technical difficulties. Turns out they are diverting all of their satellite bandwith to support HD NFL special programming packages Fall and Spring.

They did not notify customers of this reduction in service and this year increased the black out hours until 9PM. I was rather furious so called to raise ... the issue.

After ranting at the poor defenseless operator I was transefered to a supervisor. I raised the issue of un-notified reductions in service without compensation and was offered a $10 per month discount. This seems to be an automatic response to a complaint about this policy change.

This may not work if you have their NFL season ticket, but if you have a dual receiver it shoud still apply.

Their justification was that half their customers are buying NFL Season Ticket package. I guess they don't value their other 50% much. I'm shopping dish and cable now after 10 years with DirectTV and sending them dozens of new customers. Shame they didn't think to increase their bandwidth before adding new services.